Archive for the ‘Get The Look’ Category

This adorable Kate Spade purse, originally at Nordstrom, has been all over Pinterest. Unfortunately, in addition to being nearly $500, it’s also sold out. So even if I had tripped and fallen into money, this little baby couldn’t be mine. Luckily, with a little ingenuity, we can make our OWN with a much more cost-effective DIY.

This is a much simpler red crossbody bag you can find at Target for about $27. Quite a bit more budget-friendly, and it has the available space on it to add a little embellishment. Really, any purse that has enough space for a little keyboard addition will work, either store bought or thrift store goodness. Red is totally optional too, but darn cute.

In addition to a purse, you’ll need the awesome Typewriter Alphabet embroidery designs, cool-fuse interfacing, and some applique fabric. As we will be using interfacing to attach these pieces on later, be sure to pick a fabric that can be ironed without melting, especially for the large grey keyboard area. If you want to use something a bit fancier for the accents (like the space bar) you could always attach it with fabric glue.

So let’s start with the embroidery. Take your gray piece of fabric, and hoop it up as usual with some cutaway stabilizer. You’re going to want to carefully stitch your Typewriter Alphabet keys in a rough arrangement of a typewriter, like so. For a purse this size, I used the smallest size alphabet. With this much embroidery, it’s nice to be doing this on a separate piece of fabric, instead of directly onto our purse, which would be darn near impossible to hoop anyway.

Once your alphabet it all stitched and pretty, you can trim the fabric down to a “keyboard” shape, so to speak. Now, if you purse has a front with a large enough opening that you can applique your fabric piece directly on, good for you! If not, we have a little trick to make it look like a chic, stitched piece of final work. First, stitch a seam around the edge of your fabric anyway. Then, you can attach it to the front of your purse by using your cool-fuse interfacing.

I recommend cool-fuse because there’s a good likelihood the purse you might be working with could be leather or pleather, and in that case, the lower heat you can use the better. If your purse is pleather, take care not to iron over the edges of your fabric onto the pleather, as it may melt.

Finally you can add your extra fabric details in a similar manner. Cut them to shape, and stitch around the edges to give them a finished look. Then use more fusible interfacing to attach them, or if you’re feeling fancy like I was for the space key, you can go with vinyl and just use fabric glue. Smaller pieces of fabric are ok for that.

If you’re a bit worried about your fabric staying put, I’d recommend going in with a needle and thread and adding a few stitches here and there through the purse to make sure the seal doesn’t start to pull away. Wouldn’t be good to have your typewriter fly off.

And you’re done! Some adorable embroidery and some quick fused applique, and we’re in business. Plus, we saved ourselves like, $470. Score!

So next time you see a cute idea that’s a little beyond your budget, remember that you’re a crafty wizard, and you own magic machines that can help you make cool things. Things like totally chic typewriter purses!

Embroidered mexican blouses can often be pricey to buy, but that cost is often justified because they’re usually covered in gorgeous hand embroidered work. If you’re not lucky enough to grab one in Mexico, or don’t feel like spending the money or the time hand stitching your own, you can easily make one of your own inspired by the gorgeous embroidery of Mexico. But of course, with an Urban Threads twist!

You can grab a scoop neck blouse at lots of stores, as the “peasant” top (as the style is often called these days) is rather trendy. Then, all you need to complete your top is some awesomely punk-y folk art designs. Of course, for you Urban Threadsters, we couldn’t help but throw in skulls, sparrows and other more alternative designs into the colorful mix.

These designs were made to fit together around different shapes, so the sparrows for example make great shoulder swoops when mirrored, and you can pick your favorite symmetrical design for the center. There are also a couple accents you can use to fill in extra spaces and make the whole are look embroidered if you want.

As a final touch and an homage to the folk art style of our original inspiration, try out a couple of your sewing machine’s decorative stitches. You’ll probably find one or two that will make excellent borders and accents and give it that finishing touch.

For a super bight, alternative and slightly skull-ier take on the traditional Mexican blouse, this DIY is a simple way to update a top. You can add as much or as little to your top as you like, and even tone the colors down to look more traditional. Heck, it may take people a moment or two to realize some of those cute folk flowers are skulls. And that’s half the fun 😉

This cute sweatshirt we found on asos is a good example of a simple accent adding a lot of elegance. This sweater is pretty simple on it’s own, but add a touch of embroidery in the right places and suddenly it’s worth nearly $80! The execution is chic but easy to do ourselves. Plus it’s a simple enough concept that there’s probably a shirt or sweater in your closet you could transform right now.

All you need to give your sweatshirt an updated look is of course, a sweatshirt, some awesome heraldic designs (in this case, the corner and frame edge) and some lace. We’re going to use the heraldic pieces to build a frame, and then applique the lace underneath. The lace is meant to mimic the fishnet stitching on the original, and give it that elegant edge. What’s nice is that by combining these embroidery designs into a large “frame” piece, you can still get a pretty big finished result, even with a small hoop.

Start with your front piece. Pin or spray your lace in place on your sweater, and then stitch your heraldic designs on top of it, in a closed “frame” shape. This isn’t the same oval as the original inspiration, but I personally think this sort of triangle shape is more flattering anyway. If you want to get a better idea about how to lay these out like this, you can check out our original heraldic tutorial. When your frame is done stitching, carefully cut away the excess lace outside of the stitched edge.

Ok! So one down, two more to go. You’re going to repeat this technique on your sleeves. If you’ve never stitched on sleeves before, it’s simple! All you need to do is split the seams all along the side of your sweater and down your sleeve, to let the fabric lay flat. There’s an easy tutorial on how to do it here. Once your have your sleeve open and flat, you can stitch the same “framed” lace piece up on the shoulder. Do this on both sides.

Stitch the back of your sleeves and side of your sweater closed again, and you’re done.

From plain closet sweater to a runway original, you can use this look on everything from tees to long sleeve shirts. It’s a bold statement without a lot of stitches and without the need for a giant hoop. The sweater from Glamorous was nice, but it always feels better to DIY, because you get to pick the cut, the colors, everything!

Spring is right around the corner (I hope I hope I hope… stupid Minnesota) and I’ve started feeling like my winter wardrobe is super drab. Greys were my color all winter long but now I’m dreaming of light tees in bright colors, like this super pretty ombre tee from Lucky Brand. I found it on pinterest, but after a quick search around the appears to sadly be only one in existence on amazon, at least when I typed this there was.

Never fret, this tee is actually super easy to replicate! I’ll show you how…

First what you need is a plain white tee and some white lace embroidery accents. This example uses these new lace neckline applique designs, but actually you can applique on any kind of freestanding lace or even use this technique with cutwork! The important part is whatever design you use, you stitch in white cotton, because that’s whats going to let us perfectly blend our lace in with our ombre.

You can either hand stitch the lace on like applique like we did in this tutorial, or stitch it directly on to the shirt. Either works!

Next, get some of that awesome soft fabric paint. You can find this stuff in most fabric and craft stores, and it comes in tons of colors. Make sure you get the soft fabric paint, this is the kind that will sink into your fabric like dye, instead of sit on top like a screenprint. Lightly spray the top of your tee and the lace, getting lighter in your application as you go down.

The paint will perfectly dye both your tee and your lace together, so the ombre will blend seamlessly. Easy!

From a plain white tee to a springy fashion statement, it’s easy to get the look of the original tee with simple supplies. Plus this way you can choose a t-shirt style that suits you, and pick whatever color for the ombre you like. As long as you use a cotton tee and white cotton thread for your lace, it will all blend and dye beautifully.

This Emilio Pucci coat was about $2,200, but it has already sold out. Yikes! You have to admit it’s pretty, but it’s not a price tag many of us can grab at. However, there is a DIY alternative that’s much more easily in the budget this year…

There is a very similar coat still available over at Forever 21 for about 50 bucks, and a quick search on ebay reveals quite a few more like it for reasonable prices. Really all you’re looking for with this DIY is a nicely- shaped olive trench coat. You can even update the buttons if the ones on the coat you find aren’t nice and shiny like these.

What you need is the coat… and some awesome embroidery.

Let’s start with the shoulders. We’re only using two different embroidery designs, but they’ll be used multiple times, all in black. The embroidery you need is the elegant Cameo Mori and the Gather Ye Rosebuds design. The cameo in this case is stitched without it’s colored fill backing, to keep it just a little bit lighter and within our tone-on-tone look.

Mirror your two rose designs and position them so they slightly overlap, like shown. Then the Cameo Mori (without it’s fill background, remember) is positioned on top, just barley touching the roses. This combined design is stitched all in black on the shoulder of the coat. If you’re curious about how to open seams and stitch on sleeves, check out this tutorial. Repeat this combined design on the other side.

What’s nice is that even thought this combined design is a bit denser than what we would usually put on apparel, the thick wool will hold up your stitches beautifully.

Next, we’ll add a little more of those roses. Stitching the design by itself, position it so just a little bit of the roses and thorns peeks out from behind your lapel. Repeat this on the other side. If you’re lucky, hooping this part should be easy, and may only require opening up the lining a little bit.

And suddenly, your trench is transformed into something glamorous and new! Sturdy enough to take you from the end of winter into a cool spring, a regular wool coat goes from military to chic with elegant and dark embroidery additions.

Plus you saved yourself, oh about $2,150. If that’s not a steal I don’t know what is!

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psst… a little worried about opening up seams, and stitching on felt? There’s an easy design hack!

You can see above an example of how it would look with organza underneath, and you can still applique it on with chic contrasting shapes that just add to the overall look. It’s an easy way to get nearly the exact same result with a lot less of the hassle, and without risking that pretty coat!

This trendy Kites and Constellations Cardigan was $118 at Anthropologie, but even at that price it seems to have sold out. That didn’t stop this sweater from inspiring a lot of DIY versions though. The simplicity of the cardigan makes it an excellent place to pull inspiration from. However, I think with the right designs and the right cardigan, we can make something even more simple and chic than the original.

It can start rather simply with a blue cardigan. Any cardigan can work. You can do the classic boyfriend style that Anthropologie went with, but I spotted this drape style cardigan off ebay for only $13 and liked it even better. It doesn’t matter what style you pick, as long as it can hold up to some light embroidery.

That embroidery of course is going to be all the little star designs available from the Ecliptic Constellations design pack. These come in lots of different sizes and are individually stitched, with means it’s easy to place them anywhere you need to create constellations. Want to see how to hoop teeny star designs? We did it on this scarf pretty easily.

Mark on your cardigan where you need all your starts to be, and stitch and hoop them one by one. It may sound a little daunting, but actually these designs stitch so fast you’ll be done before you know it. After all, we’ve stitched dozens of stars like this on a project before. For now, don’t fret about the constellation lines. Those come next. Also, I think it’s kind of fun to sprinkle a few random stars about the place, to give the whole sweater a heavenly feel. That’s optional though, you could just stick with the constellations.

Psstt… you know what else would look chic on this sweater? One of those pretty constellation designs right on the back! Choose your sign to make this cardigan truly your own.

Now, here’s the point that can be done two ways. If you want the chunky, retro style stitching like the original sweater, you best bet is to go old school with your embroidery. Yup… grab some white floss and get stitching by hand! It’s a very very simple stitch, you just need to connect the lines of your stars with a few big stitches.

Don’t feel like embroidering by hand? You can stitch a line by machine. Try using cotton thread for a thicker effect, and stitch over your line a few times to make sure it shows up. Take care on stretchy sweaters not to bunch it up.

So, there you have it. It’s a slightly updated look, but if you like the retro appeal of the original sweater, you can always find a cardigan like that. In fact, I bet thrift stores are full of them! Just sprinkle on a few stars, stitch in some embroidery thread, and you have a sweater inspired by the heavens. It’s a lot less than if you could have bought it even when it was available, and this way, you get to pick your own sweater, your own constellations. Wrap up against the chilly winter sky with a starry sky of your own!

You have to admit, this Dolce & Gabbana piece is a pretty snazzy looking jacket, but for an eye watering $3,152 it’s not a look a lot of us are going to get to rock this fall. Still, this men’s embroidered blazer is a great jumping off point for inspiration, for lads and ladies alike. In fact, I imagine it’s the ladies that are more likely to go for a look like this, so let’s see how we could re-create this style for either gender easily, and on a budget!

It’s pretty simple really. All you need is a snazzy grey blazer with lapels large enough to embroider. A quick search on ebay brings up dozens for under 20 bucks, for men and women alike. This example is a lady’s jacket, because I could totally see myself trying this look out. After the jacket, all you need is Gather Ye Rosebuds design, and some metallic or coppery colored thread. Depending on the size of your blazer, I’d recommend the 5×7 size of the design.

Fold your lapels away from your jacket, secure them onto your stabilizer, hoop, and stitch away! You’ll want to mirror your rose design for the other collar. Un-hoop, trim away the excess stabilizer so it’s hidden by the collar, and shazam! A brilliant new blazer for about $3130 less. That’s a pretty good deal right there, no?

Lapels on jackets are always a cool place to add some embroidery bling. A classy dimensional one-color piece will keep your accent subtle and still let it make a real wow statement when you wear it out. So, guys or gals, you looking for a hot new look this fall? Up-cycle a thrift store blazer into something extra chic.